And I hope that this morning you'll get
excited about reading the Bible through.
I want us to look at the book
of Acts and the chapter that's not so
well known, chapter 23.
I want to share with you the reality
of spiritual warfare.
The reality of spiritual warfare.
We see in chapter 23 of the book
of Acts a conspiracy to kill the apostle
Paul.
I know that there has been a conspiracy
to destroy the ministry of Billy Graham from
the earliest days.
There's a conspiracy against ministers in general.
This fast-selling novel, This Present Darkness, rapidly
becoming one of the most widely distributed books
in the world, points out the conspiracy against
God's people in the heavenlies.
And we know what Ephesians 6 says about
fiery darts, about spiritual warfare, about wickedness in
high places.
There's a group of evil people in California
that would send wicked women for counseling to
pastors.
This is 25 years ago.
These women would seduce the pastors.
They'd get photos of the ministers in bed
with these women and blackmail them.
That's 25 years ago.
Do you think they've improved in their methodology?
Have we seen any Christian leaders in this
country, or America, or Canada, or Australia, or
New Zealand, wiped out because of fiery darts,
of money, of lust?
We've seen many.
I believe that's one of the hard questions
that Wogan tried to put to Billy Graham.
Let's read this.
Verse 12, When it was day, certain of
the Jews banded together and bound themselves under
a curse, saying they would neither eat nor
drink till they had killed Paul.
And there were more than 40 who made
this conspiracy.
And they came to the chief priests and
the elders, and they said, We have bound
ourselves under a great curse, and we will
eat nothing until we have slain Paul.
Now therefore, ye, with a counsel, signify to
the chief captain that he may bring him
unto you tomorrow, as though you would inquire
something more perfectly concerning him.
And we, before he comes near, are ready
to kill him.
And when Paul's sister's son heard of their
lying in wait, he went and entered into
the barracks and told Paul.
Then Paul called one of the centurions unto
him and said, Bring this young man unto
the chief captain, for he hath a certain
thing to tell him.
And he took him and brought him to
the chief captain and said, Paul the prisoner,
call me unto him and ask me to
bring this young man unto thee, who hath
something to say unto you.
Then the chief captain took him by the
hand and went with him aside privately and
asked him, What is that that thou hast
to tell me?
And he said, The Jews have agreed to
desire thee, that thou wouldst bring down Paul
tomorrow into the council, though they would inquire
somewhat of him more perfectly.
But do not thou yield unto them, for
they lie in wait for him of them.
More than forty men who have bound themselves
with an oath, that they will neither eat
nor drink till they have killed him.
And now are they ready looking for a
prisoner, or a promise, excuse me, looking for
a promise from you.
So the chief captain then let the young
man depart and charged him, See thou tell
no man that thou hast shown these things
to me.
And so they removed Paul by night and
took him to another place.
Now many times I speak in ministers' meetings
and missionary meetings, and many times in those
meetings I've spoken on this text.
But this is one of the first times
I've ever spoken on this text just in
a normal church meeting.
And I hope you can make the association,
I hope you can contextualize what we see
here in this passage into your own situation,
even though you may not be a Christian
leader.
I had the burden to share this morning
something about how Satan will attempt to destroy
those young babes who have made professions of
faith this week.
Keep in mind that fifty percent of the
people who've made decisions who went forward are
already believers.
One of our OM women is working right
through the night, tallying up the statistics so
we're getting rather accurate information, at least we
hope.
And that's quite normal.
In a Billy Graham meeting, many who make
a commitment or go forward are making a
recommitment of their lives to Christ.
That's quite normal.
I've done it a number of times in
my life in different meetings, especially when I
was a young Christian.
In my own meetings to believers, I often
call people to recommitment to Christ, to make
a deeper commitment to the Lord Jesus.
Sometimes I maybe just have them stand and
then pray together.
Other times I may call them to come
forward.
I believe the key to world evangelism is
in the hands of the average Christian.
And it's as believers are revived and renewed
and make deeper commitments to Christ that we
can see so much more happen.
To me, this is a time for all
of us as believers to make a deeper
commitment to God, whether we go forward in
a Billy Graham meeting or not.
We can do this in our own room.
Many people are turned off the church.
I talked to a friend of mine yesterday
morning.
I said, where are you going to church
now?
She said, you know, she's through with the
nominations.
She's through with the churches.
But she says she still loves the Lord.
I hope to meet her tonight, speaking in
a church near Richmond this evening.
People have been through very, very hard experiences.
Don't think it's just with established churches.
The new movements, which I'm very much involved
in the last 20 years, now have hundreds,
thousands of people who have gone through these
new churches and have burnt out and are
hurt and have quit.
In some cases, they've overthrown the Christian faith
completely.
You know, as God's people, sometimes we do
get into a little bit of fantasy land.
It's great to have Billy Graham back, but
some of us lived here after Billy was
here 10, 15 years ago when there was
such backbiting, gossip, and criticism of him, on
little details, something his wife did wrong.
And even God's people were quite arrogant, quite
proud, quite manifest in their bitter statements against
Billy Graham.
And very few of them ever wrote to
him.
You know, Billy Graham's just an ordinary person.
Of course he's made mistakes.
Far more than you.
Because the more you do, the more mistakes
you're going to make.
And some of you haven't made any big
mistakes in your life because you haven't done
anything.
You haven't done anything.
And maybe you don't like to be told
that, but in your heart, you know it's
true.
You're not filled with the Spirit.
You're not reaching out to touch people for
Christ.
Paul said very clear, I am crucified with
Christ.
How totally different from the pride and the
arrogance and the backbiting that is so prevalent
in our churches in Britain today.
Some people say we need revival.
That's the understatement of the century.
And if we think Billy Graham's visit is
going to solve our problems without a lot
of effort on our part, a lot of
tears, a lot of repentance, a lot of
hard work, a lot of being stripped of
self, and taking the mask off, we're just
deceived.
It's like thinking if you get a real
dynamic pastor in here, that will make the
church extra special.
It may, it may not.
I'm very involved in local churches, actually more
than I am OM.
And many a dynamic pastor has come in,
have blown the church in too.
The key in the church is not firstly
the pastor.
The key, the people.
And our prayer life, our love, our spiritual
maturity, our understanding of what we are in
as believers, this is spiritual warfare.
Satan will not be happy with you tripping
and falling on your nose a few times.
We've all done that.
Satan wants to destroy you.
Do you know that?
Do you understand that?
Do you live in the light of that?
In terms of your use of time, in
terms of your approach to scripture, in terms
of your relationships with others, and keeping a
clean slate, in your attitude, in your disposition,
because it's easy to have an evangelical smile,
but it's not so easy to have a
godly disposition.
That's where my failure has been.
Because without Jesus Christ working with me, I
can have a disposition of a snake.
And I think of Father's Day, and I
think at Father's Day of the great patience
and love that my wife has had for
me these 29 years.
And I'm a miracle.
For a character like me to be married
to one woman for 29 years, it's like
a dinosaur dancing a jig on a pin.
And people knew that when I was saved.
Because at 16 I was into pornography, I
was into business, I was a liar, a
loud mouth.
New York City was my turf.
And when people saw me come to Christ
in that Billy Graham meeting, you can be
sure they were mighty skeptical.
And when I started preaching six weeks later
at 17, six months later at 17 years
of age, you can be sure most people
weren't too positive.
Just like when I landed here 27 years
ago, most people backed up about 100 yards
and said it was nice meeting you.
Because I am.
I'm a naturally bombastic, obnoxious, offensive type, loud
mouth, gum chewing, overbearing, impossible, let's only have
him once every 10 years, American.
But the amazing thing is God saved me.
And God's kept me every day for 20,
no, 33 years.
Now some of you are going to twig
how old I am.
I don't care because the 50s are great.
It was the fabulous 40s, it's the fighting
50s.
And if you want to fight, meet me
by the bookstall.
But I don't use my hands.
My weapons are love.
And that's what the Word of God teaches.
I'm concerned about the people who flock out
of Crystal Palace this coming week, having made
a decision for Jesus Christ.
I'm concerned if any of them have any
contact with you or with me, will we
be a blessing to them or will we
be an offense?
I don't know if there's any young babe
in Christ here this morning.
You will get babes in Christ into your
church to the degree that you're willing to
go and find them and take the initiative.
Because a lot of people make a profession
of faith on a Thursday and don't even
end up in a church on a Sunday
because no one linked with them, no one
got a hold of them.
Now I believe in this well-organized campaign
that is probably being avoided.
But you see, people can go to a
church and if we aren't wise, we aren't
discerning, and Tozer said the greatest gift needed
in the church today was discernment, we can
be a stumbling block to those young babes.
And I would just remind you, as I
remind myself, of the vulnerability of the young
believer.
The vulnerability of the young believer.
Some of the people who make decisions are
not converted people.
They have made a decision, they are on
the way.
If there's good follow-up, if there's love,
history proves this, Billy Graham states this, they
will come probably across the line into true
conversion somewhere in the weeks to come.
Others are soundly converted at the moment of
those meetings.
So much is determined, and humanly speaking, on
the church, on our reception of these people,
these babes in Christ.
Even meeting them after, meeting them the next
morning, the next morning is one of the
roughest periods for the babe in Christ, because
he is going to have peers, he is
going to have relatives, and I know because
I come from that background, who are going
to say, this is just an emotional trip.
There is an enormous amount of sarcasm, there's
an enormous amount of cynicism flowing out in
present-day Britain and in the States, so
that if the babe in Christ is exposed
to this cynicism, even some joke by some
comedian on television, who are highly gifted cynics
with their subtle British humor, that can make
a young Christian feel like he has been
conned.
Especially when he discovers that people also would
like him to give his money to their
activities, and people are offended by the aggressive
efforts, far more common in America, that are
used to get their money when they are
just a baby Christian, trying to figure out
step A, step B in the Christian life.
Let us humble ourselves in these days.
Let us open our homes, because if we
open our stadiums and we don't open our
homes, we play the hypocrite.
Unless we have some special crisis in our
home that makes it impossible, and that could
be, that could be, because opening your home
is not a small thing.
If your husband or your wife doesn't agree
with this, then you have to hold up.
Easily, when Billy Graham comes and there's a
great campaign, Christians of a certain type get
over-committed.
They get too much involved in all this,
and they open their home too much, and
they go to too many meetings, and in
the process of that, they get other attacks
from Satan.
Their children, their own children, maybe didn't want
to go to that meeting, or maybe would
like to see daddy a little more.
Some of you have read the article of
the missing father, who is so caught up
in Christian activities and important campaigns and counseling,
that the children never see him.
I speak from first-hand experience again, as
one who was away from my children perhaps
too often.
Yes, Satan has a roaring lion, seeketh whom
he may devour.
There's another part of Scripture that says Satan
comes often as an angel of light, so
subtle.
He often can come with slick doctrinal clichés.
He's a specialist in easy answers, and he
is a great promoter of spiritual pride and
religious arrogance, which so often is an offense.
I know a young woman who made a
decision in a meeting.
She was so sensitive, she came from a
difficult background.
She stood in a meeting to make a
decision for Christ, and in the back counseling
room somebody came down really heavy on her,
that she must get the second blessing or
the third blessing, and she must get this
gift, and that gift completely blew her away.
Never did she ever step back in that
church.
It is possible to try to overdose a
young Christian.
It is possible to come on too strong,
and even as you have a babe in
Christ in your home, or you meet a
seeker, someone who's not a Christian but is
a seeker, don't feel it always has to
be spiritual things.
It always has to be some heavy exhortation.
Maybe they're sleeping with their boyfriend, and you
feel suddenly you're John the Baptist, and you're
going to really point out the dangers of
this, and that AIDS will soon come jumping
up through the loo, and they will be
stricken dead.
Perhaps that's a bit of overstatement, but I
think you know what I mean.
As Christians we come on too strong.
If it wasn't for my own ability somehow
to bring in a little humor in what
I share, I would come on too strong.
You've got to have a sense of humor
if you're going to be among God's people.
And I as a baby Christian found some
of God's people.
I found them as a new Christian a
real pain in the neck.
Now don't get feeling all guilty.
I had to work that through, and I
did in the Word of God, and understood
that Christians were human, and being born again
doesn't mean you go from a one-talent
person to a ten-talent person.
It doesn't mean you put a Jaguar engine
in a Volkswagen.
And one of the greatest things that will
help young babes in Christ to grow is
simply accepting them, and loving them, and being
their friend, and not condemning them if they're
still going in the pub to meet some
of their old friends, and not condemning them
if somehow they still light up their cigarette,
and somehow they're still doing things that are
considered worldly among the Lord's people who have
got their own sins, which are far uglier
than going to the pub or lighting up
a fag.
When will we be honest about pride?
When will we be honest about religious arrogance?
When will we be honest about our own
traditionalism in the way we do tend to
look down our noses at people of other
races, and people from different churches, and just
let 1 Corinthians 13 roar through our lives
like a mighty tidal wave?
That's what we need.
If we're going to see biblical follow-up
on all these who profess faith, and with
that we can win men even like Terry
Wogan to Jesus Christ.
I wonder how many of us ever sit
down and write letters, maybe looking for something
we can compliment someone on.
That's the way to start, with a compliment,
not a criticism.
If you haven't learned how to compliment people,
you have no credentials whatsoever for criticism.
And maybe the next time Wogan or somebody
else you see on TV does something good,
write to them.
And then send them maybe a good book.
It's amazing what you can do with books.
I just wrote another letter to Maggie, Margaret
Thatcher, and got a lovely letter back from
Downing Street.
I sent her Loving God by Charles Colson.
Brilliant.
And I sent with it my own book,
No Turning Back.
I thought she might need that title.
Satan as a Roaring Lion Seeketh Whom He
May Devour.
Not just the Apostle Paul, though Satan targets
people that are on fire for God.
Satan targets men like Billy Graham.
That's why he's been so cautious and careful
in his relationship with the opposite sex, classified
as a Puritan.
He's had a policy that he wouldn't go
alone with other women.
We took that policy into our whole movement.
I'm with a fellowship known as Operation Mobilization.
And we decided also to walk a cautious
road and we encouraged our leaders, not as
a fixed policy, but in general to avoid
just going around publicly or even privately with
someone of the opposite sex, especially if you're
a leader.
People have tried to push loose living women
into Billy's arms and get a picture.
Usually he has another man with him or
his own wife.
What a miracle that this man has kept
a clean slate all these years.
And believe me, the press have tried in
the States to destroy him, especially when these
other TV evangelists collapsed.
What men like Billy have had to go
through is quite awesome.
But Satan is not just out to get
the Billy Graham.
Satan hates the weakest saint, especially if he
or she are learning how to pray.
How are you doing in that area?
I was encouraged that you're going to have
your prayer meeting, even during a Billy Graham
meeting.
I think that's good planning.
We actually canceled our main Tuesday night prayer
meeting in O.M. Bromley, the international office
of O.M., I don't know if you
know, is in Bromley in Forest Hill.
The British office is near Oswestry in a
county that I can't even pronounce.
Sharpshire.
Believe it or not, this summer over 1
,500 British people have signed up for Love
Europe.
And the letters have just come back from
the continent saying the numbers for Love Europe
have zoomed over the 6,500 mark, never
in the history of our work have we
had so many people mobilizing simultaneously for evangelism.
Several hundred of them will be hitting the
great city of Bristol, as Britain has now
been targeted not only as a great sending
field, which it has been for our work.
We have over 300 full-time British people
in O.M., but also as an evangelistic
target field.
And our new evangelistic program in England is
called LUKE, L-U-K-E, Love UK
Evangelism.
You can remember that.
Pray for Love Europe.
It's too late to go this summer, but
it's not too late to pray.
Prayer is where the action is.
We see that in the life of Paul.
We see that throughout the entire book of
Acts.
And I believe that many of our problems
in the present day, and we have a
lot of them on the mission field, including
the fact that many, many British missionaries cannot
get financial support.
Many of them are praying and thinking about
returning to secular occupation to make money to
support others who can stay.
General missionary giving in Britain is a proven
fact to be mainly tokenism.
There are a few beautiful exceptions.
You may be one of them, praise the
Lord.
But in general, it's just so discouraging.
Now, I know as Christians we're never supposed
to be discouraged, right?
Well, I'll tell you, you're looking at a
Christian who gets discouraged all the time.
All the time, forgive me.
Just looking in the mirror at times for
me is a real downer.
But I've discovered what to do when I
get discouraged.
I repent.
And I ask the Lord to forgive me.
And I meditate on Scripture.
And I praise the Lord.
If that doesn't work, because listening to myself
is also a bit of a downer, then
I put on a praise tape with my
little Walkman, the greatest invention since the printing
press, and I fight my way out of
that depression and that discouragement.
I wonder, does any of us this morning,
if we're honest, that's not so easy, is
it?
We're discouraged.
Maybe in our prayer life.
Maybe in our witnessing.
Maybe in the home.
Maybe in our job.
Do all of you have those exciting, mega
-motivating jobs?
And you just love to trung on down
to Sidcup Station on Monday morning and sit
with all the commuters, that smiling, happy crowd,
and go in to London and work at
the same desk you've been sitting at for
six years.
I think I'd rather be a rugby player
in America.
Life is filled with sadness.
Actually, Billy Graham said that.
The sooner we have a balanced view of
life, so that we can incorporate the joy
as well as the sadness, and in the
midst of the sadness not get discouraged, not
throw in the towel, not get down so
that we spread that sadness and that discouragement
to others.
Some are very gifted in that area.
You really feel great until you meet these
people.
And then they start telling you about all
their illnesses and about all their problems and
about this thing.
You go out of there and you do
need a praise tape after visiting with them.
It's exciting to see what God is doing
in these days.
No wonder Satan is angry.
No wonder Satan is trying to divide every
church in Britain.
There is hardly a church in Britain right
now.
And I'll give you a hundred books if
you can prove me otherwise.
That is not battling Satan's effort to bring
division.
Cathedral, House Church, Baptist Church, Brethren Assembly, Pentecostal,
Elam.
I flow and have the privilege of moving
with them, meeting sometimes these people in the
thousands and ministering at places like Spring Harvest
or Keswick.
Satan is out to destroy the church.
Satan is out to bring disunity.
Often it's small, very small, so we don't
worry about it.
It's under the carpet.
So we drop our guard.
Whereas if we're biblical and if we're wise
concerning Satan's methodology, we will constantly work toward
greater unity.
We will not allow wrong attitudes to develop
toward a brother, toward a sister.
We will not listen to bits of gossip
that stain our mind in our thinking about
a person.
But we will in love and tenderness go
and fellowship with that person.
Not in an accusation way, but asking questions.
Too often we accuse one another, especially behind
one another's back.
It's not easy to find a new pastor.
You're looking for, we say in America, a
senior pastor.
Is that what's happening now?
Do you have a committee?
What's happening here to find a senior pastor?
Are you the senior pastor?
What's happening?
You're looking for a pastor.
That's not easy.
The whole church is split in two looking
for a pastor.
And they bring one in and 40%
of the people think, that's the man.
But 60% think, he's not the man.
What do you think happens then?
Our love for one another just increases, especially
in the committee meetings.
Is the church not far from here going
through awesome trauma right now in this very
same thing?
These are days when Satan has a roaring
lion seeking who he may devour.
Ephesians 6 speaks about flaming fiery arrows.
Now if you went home this morning to
your home and there was a little note
on the door signed by 25 of your
neighbors and they said, we are not going
to eat today until you are dead.
I dare to say that some of you
most flamatically back English people would have a
bit of a metabolistic upsurge reading that note.
And yet this is what the Bible teaches.
And we cannot continue to play religious games
in our churches.
We must get down to prayer.
We must get down to repentance.
We must get into the scriptures.
We must guard and protect our unity.
I sensed coming here this morning a sense
of expectation in this church, a sense of
love, a sense of unity.
And may you value that.
May you fight for it spiritually.
May you continue to hold high that shield
of faith to stop every fiery dart of
Satan.
And as you do, God will mightily use
you in Sidcup and London and Britain and
the world.
But the road will not be easy.
We are all so different.
Imagine if I joined your church, huh?
It's great having me for a Sunday, huh?
What if I come back on Tuesday and
say, Hey, I just thought your people were
the greatest crowd around.
I think I'll join.
You'd have an immediate meeting of the deacons.
Where do you live?
West Wickham.
We don't really accept people from West Wickham.
That's pretty far away.
I dare to say that you might have
some people in your midst who you personally
also find at times a bit difficult.
That's the great challenge of the Christian life.
To love the person who disagrees with you.
To love the person who's very different from
you.
To love the person who maybe has hurt
you or criticized you or misunderstood you.
That's what Christianity is all about.
To receive a young, on fire, baby Christian
who grows like a beautiful spiritual flower and
becomes a leader in the church, that's no
great challenge.
He'll be a blessing.
But to receive some young, struggling, baby Christian
who doesn't get his act together for a
couple of years, that will test your Christianity
right to the root.
Doesn't mean we don't need wisdom.
Doesn't mean, as Christians, we can't be conned
by a false believer.
In working with the Muslims and in the
Muslim world, one of our greatest problems is
false believers.
And we've had little naive OM leaders taken,
I don't know if you know that expression,
I love to use strange expressions, taken to
the cleaners, we say in New Jersey, where
I'm from.
Deceived, conned.
A young man was witnessing once in the
streets of Brussels and another man came up
to him and was really interested in the
message.
Oh, come back to my apartment and tell
me more.
And this naive OMer goes back to the
apartment and this man, an active, practicing homosexual,
tries to seduce him on the spot.
We need wisdom.
We need discipline.
In some things that come our way, there's
no easy answer.
Some people think there's always a solution to
everything.
Whenever it comes our way, there's a solution.
And the pastor is supposed to know what
the solution is.
No wonder more of them are having nervous
breakdowns than ever before.
Number one nervous breakdown group in America, next
to psychiatrists or pastors.
There are some things you will face as
a church in which whatever you do, someone
will not be happy.
In which whatever you do, something will go
wrong.
And the problem isn't the church.
The problem is the planet.
The Swedes are offering trips to the moon
in 1994.
Sign up.
But as long as you stay here, there'll
be problems, there'll be pains, there'll be hurts.
And how sad when Satan deceives a young
believer and he thinks that the problem is
the church, the problem is God's people, when
that's not the problem.
The problem is the planet.
The problem may be himself.
The problem is we live in a fallen
world.
The problem is this treasure is in earthen
vessels.
All of our life we will make mistakes.
All of our life we will do dumb
things and sometimes hurt people, even the ones
we love the most.
Some of you are blaming yourself for problems
you have with your children when the problem
isn't you.
It's the devil.
It's life.
And I find personally life is a great
mystery.
The suffering in China right now is a
mystery to me.
I refuse to accept somebody's little cliché, especially
when they don't know much about China.
The problem of two people being prayed for,
one being healed and the other dying in
a week, is not something that I accept
any simple answers to.
Eugenia Price helped me when I was almost
abandoning a Christian faith loaded with doubt.
In her amazing book, No Easy Answer, and
to some of these hard questions, why does
God allow this?
Why didn't God do that?
To some of these tough questions, maybe a
tough question you are wrestling with in your
heart and your mind, there is no simple
answer.
There is only God Himself, loving you, fellowshipping
with you, putting His arms spiritually around you,
and asking you to come and worship Him,
not in the absence of struggle or doubt,
but in the midst of those things.
And you will get to know Him, even
if you are a doubting Thomas.
This generation of new believers are going to
be strugglers.
They are loaded with doubt.
They are loaded with question.
They are loaded with unbelief.
They will easily swing the pendulum one month,
and swing the opposite direction the next, and
as a Christian leader you will be scratching
your head, wondering, what should I do?
Let's teach them about the greatness of God.
Let's be delivered from small-mindedness, even if
it comes with a theological suit coat.
Let's teach them about the greatness of God,
the love of God, the mercy of God,
the patience of God, who will often endure
that young babe's struggles and problems much more
than we are able to.
And when we present this kind of God,
and also teach them about Satan's fiery darts,
I believe we can create in God's purposes
a generation of young, excited, new Christians who
will turn the world upside down for Jesus
Christ, even as we read in Acts 17.
In the midst of this great mission, London,
with millions of people praying, millions are praying
right now for this, let's search our own
hearts.
Let's make sure that we are on course
in our own lives in finding the balance,
in finding God's perspective, in learning to live
with ourselves, in learning to live with others,
and in building the church in a way
that will be pleasing to God, and realizing
that each individual here this morning is as
important in the kingdom as Billy Graham.
Do you believe that?
I tell you, when you do, Sidcup is
going to feel it, and Bromley as well.
Let's pray.
Let's take a few moments for just silent
contemplation, meditation.
Scripture that may be on your mind, one
of many that I've quoted, one that especially
helps me is Romans 12, 1 and 2,
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies
of God, that you present your bodies as
a living sacrifice.
Present your bodies as a living sacrifice.
Just pray your own prayer, confession, repentance, recommitment,
worship.